Duck-Billed Dinosaur New Species Found

The new species is called Probrachylophosaurus Bergei and it provides important information about an evolutionary transition from the duckbilled species that lived earlier and the descendants that followed it. The description was documented by Elizabeth Freedman Fowler, an adjunct professor at Montana State University and curator of paleontology at the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum in Malta.

Researchers from Montana State University concluded that Probrachylophosaurus is a member of the Brachylophosaurini clade of dinosaurs, which are known to have existed in North America during the Late Cretaceous period.

This puts the newly found dinosaur in the middle, between Brachylophosaurus and Acristavus, making him the missing evolutionary step of duck-billed dinosaurs, making the link from transitional nasal shape that the non-crested dinosaurs had, like the Acristavus, to the large flat nasal crest of the Brachylophosaurus and the later species. She was aided in her research by MSU paleontologist and professor Jack Horner, who was also mentoring her. Brachylophosaurus Canadensis, on the other hand, possessed a flat paddle-shaped nasal crest projecting back over the top of its skull and can be traced to 77.8 million years ago.

The new Probrachylophosaurus is dated between the two creatures and has a small crest.

The recreated image of the fossil clearly shows the view of duckbilled dinosaurs. It moved around in what is now called the Judith River formation.

“The first bones we uncovered were the pelvis and parts of the legs; which were so large it led to the site being given the nickname ‘Superduck, ‘” Fowler had said.

According to Freedman Fowler it is a flawless example and a solid clue to the existence of evolution within a single lineage of dinosaurs that expands over millions of years.

P. bergei constitutes a transitional species between the non-crested Acristavus, a duck-billed dinosaur which lived about 81 million years ago, and the large-crested Brachylophosaurus from 78 million years ago.

Freedman Fowler and Horner after returning to the lab discovered that they had found most of the skull and postcranium they found belonged to a new kind of dinosaur.